Gotta catch 'em all
by LostLyra
Summary: Clyde has a dark secret, and there's more to our good friend Mr. Langer then meets the eye.


Hey all.

I originally wrote this for the release of Pokemon SoulSilver and HeartGold, in the spring, but oh well, better late then never!

If you're really, really sad then you can listen to the lyrics with this link! XD (No I wasn't the saddest one to go searching for them!) you tube .com/watch?v=f2CCq (underscore)dvpC0

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A teenage dark skinned boy pushed open the old-fashioned looking door to his best friend's house. He kicked off his shoes, his head swinging in time with the beat as he hummed his song. Hanging up his coat on the nearby hanger he slid across the floor in his socks, pretending to do an air guitar finish, but carrying on with the tune anyway. The plastic bag he was holding swung with the beat in his hands; it's cargo safe in the bright packaging. GAME stamped across the front in bold purple letters.

"_I wanna be the very best_," he sang. "_Like no one ever waasss_!" his off beat, off key singing alerted his crush, who came out of the kitchen with a large packet of biscuits that she'd swiped from the owner of the house. Chocolate was a good source of energy for revision – and she was going to share it, she swore! "_To catch them is my real test, to train them is my cause..._" he grinned to himself and pretended to play high notes on the invisible guitar. His dark haired, good-looking crush stood with her mouth agape. This was too good to miss; quickly she took out her phone and pressed record. Her friend started to sing again, still completely oblivious so his crush recording.

"_I will travel across the land, searching far and wide,_" he danced up the stairs, swinging his body this way and that, just enough to for the female to take in a good view of his backside. "_These Pokémon to understand, the power that's inssssiDe._" The teen did another guitar slam, and ended his song with a rock jump at the top of the stairs, so he was facing the recording camera phone – and looking very triumphant at his lyrics, he turned, about to end it with a big finish, but it came out as a tiny embarrassed squeak as he saw his crush standing at the bottom of the stairs, tears of silent laughter rolling down her cheeks. "_Pokémon...gotta catch 'em all_!" he whimpered.

"What have you got in the bag Clyde?" she drawled, swaying her hips and drawing out the sentence.

"Nothin'," the other teen replied. "You didn't, see all of that did you Rani?" he asked hopefully.

"Enough," she replied. "Why were you singing the Pokémon theme tune?" she quizzed. Clyde backed up the rest of the stairs slowly, and hoped she wouldn't miss the sneaking retreat.

"No reason," the teen replied, backing up the stairs, for a second Rani stopped filming his embarrassment and glowered at him. "What's in the bag Clyde?" she asked sweetly, the darker skinned boy shook his head.

"Uh-huh," he replied, and started to quicken his hasty retreat up the stairs. His Asian friend knew that he was trying to escape – and was having none of it. She broke into a quick sprint, taking the stairs two at a time. Clyde yelped, scrambling up the rest of the stairs, and crashed into the attic as if there was a Bane chasing after him, bag clutched to his chest. "Luke hide me!" he cried dramatically, ignoring the fact that his best friend was blatantly on webcam to his girlfriend.

Sarah-Jane looked over the top of her magazine amused at the pair's antics. Her glasses were perched on the edge of her nose, as she placed the National Geographic down on her lap, Luke turned to see Rani circling Clyde like a hunter, and Clyde clutching a plastic bag to his chest.

"What's going on?" his girlfriend asked as her boyfriend obscured her view.

"Sorry," he wheeled himself out of the way, and gave her a better view of Rani terrifying Clyde.

"I don't wanna die young!" the boy wailed dramatically.

"I just want to see what's in that bag!" the onlookers watched amused as Rani tackled the other boy. The teen yelped as Rani made for him, tripping over his own two feet as he stumbled past. There was a painful _thump_ on the floor and everyone winced.

"Ow!" he moaned, rubbing his chin. Realising his GAME bag was half way across the room he quickly crawled across the room to get it, a grin forming on his face. He underestimated Rani's determinedness as she once again went for him, straddling him and tugging at the package. "_Luke_!" Clyde's voice was muffled. "Show me how cool you are and _SAVE_ me!" Maria rolled her eyes at her friend's over dramatisation of current affairs.

"Why were you singing the Pokémon theme tune?" Rani asked, sitting on him, her legs straddled across his hips (if it weren't for Clyde's current predicament he would have been very happy with the view).

"What's Pokémon?" Luke asked.

"Don't ask mate," Clyde replied hurriedly, fearing his own reputation would quickly dissolve - like limestone in hydrochloric acid.

Maria rolled her eyes. "I thought that you were doing the culture,"

"Yeah, but this must have slipped my mind," his grip had loosened on the GAME bag and Rani quickly swiped it from him.

"Hey! Rani!" Clyde moaned. She pulled the bag open and found two boxes. One labelled _Pokémon_ _SoulSilver_ and the other _Pokémon HeartGold_. Her face broke into a grin.

"Aww, Clyde! I didn't know you still played!"

The teen groaned and crossed his arms in a sulk (even though it wasn't _cool_ to sulk he still did it anyway). Sarah-Jane crossed the room. "I remember the _Pokémon_ craze," she grinned at Clyde.

"What _is_ Pokémon?" Luke asked for a second time, and Mr. Smith decided to intervene, bringing up a definition.

"It's translated from Japanese for Pocket Monsters, and they are small 'monsters' in a game where people can breed, train, care and raise them through a series of challenges,"

"It sounds interesting," Luke replied – he didn't see his girlfriend roll her eyes and giver herself a painful face palm.

"Aww it's okay," Rani pretended to ruffle Clyde's hair. "You'll get over the initial embarrassment of the after I've shown the video,"

"NO!" Clyde whined. "Please _no_,"

"What video?" Maria asked, even though she was still over the other side of the continent, she liked to still be with in her friends 'inner circle'.

"It's just of Clyde doing his _routine_," the other boy's eyes went wide, and he glowered at her.

"Rani! Please no!" he fell in front of her onto his knees, begging her not to show the video.

"What will it take?" she teased. Drawing out her phone tauntingly slowly, Clyde groaned and flopped down on his back.

"Fine my reputation's dead anyway," he flopped backwards dramatically, pretending to be drowning and clutching at his throat, making his eyes go wide and dilating his pupils.

"These have been done before," Sarah-Jane commented as she read the back package of the game.

"They're makin' the best – better," Clyde replied. "I didn't know you played,"

Sarah-Jane laughed. "It was Mr. Smith that actually started the craze, he got addicted to them when they unleashed in the nineties,"

"I thought that _you_ were meant to be a super computer," Maria's pointed voice came from the screen.

"I can get board," the alien technology replied stiffly, Maria's response was a giggle.

"What does a pikachu look like?" Luke asked with interest, he had the instruction leaflet of _Pokémon HeartGold_ spread across his lap and was reading in interest.

"_Luke_!" his dark skinned friend complained, Rani grinned at his attitude.

"I will show you," Mr. Smith replied. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a small yellow mouse like creature appeared. It went up to Luke, cocking his head, one ear pointed up and the other to the side.

"Aww it's so _cute_!" Rani completely forgot her dislike for the game and squatted down next to it, about to pat it, but her hand went straight through.

"It's a hologram," Luke explained surprised.

"I cannot replicated a _Pokémon's_ DNA as it doesn't physically exist," the computer replied. "But I can create a hologram of its exact physical appearance and dimensions,"

Clyde looked up at the computer hopefully, but got a warning glower from Sarah-Jane, who crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot. "But Sarah!"

"No, I do not want my supercomputer becoming addicted to a Japanese RPG again, it was bad enough that I had to completely reboot his systems, and it took me _weeks_,"

"You destroyed Pono!" there was an indigent voice from across the room, as Mr. Smith interjected his feelings about the situation, completely loosing his normal calm.

Maria snorted. "Pono, really?" Mr. Smith flashed his screens in annoyance, and hummed as if he was glaring.

"He was a Clefairy and yes, his name _was_ Pono… but when Sarah-Jane rebooted my data I lost every single character,"

"It stopped you having the addiction,"

"They were all Level 200!" the computers monotonous voice almost sounded dejected.

Meanwhile throughout the whole ordeal Clyde had started to unwrap the _SoulSliver_ version and had uploaded the game onto his coviently placed DS. His eyes lit up like Christmas tree lights as he started to rapidly tap and press the buttons on the silver lined hand held consol. The theme music started to play for the introduction and he was immeadately fixated, his eyes glued to the screen.

"Hmmph," Mr. Smith sighed, and closed himself up, almost as if he was sulking. The pikachu hologram disappeared, much to Rani's disappointment. Wondering if it would work Rani moved over to Clyde and waved a hand in his face. The teen flicked it away and went back to playing the game.

Rolling her eyes Rani opened the chocolate biscuits that had been left, forgotten on the floor and handed one to Luke, before offering one to Sarah-Jane (ignoring her raised eyebrow about pillaging her cupboard). Sitting on the small stairs leading down to the (now sulking) Mr. Smith, Rani sighed as the chocolate taste tingled on her tongue.

"So," Maria asked, her voice sounding over the repetitive riffs of the game. "What about this video?"

Rani stole a glance at Clyde. "Hey Clyde, can I show them the video?" the boy in question shrugged, completely absorbed in the game, and Rani took that as a yes…

… several hours later dusk had settled and Rani and Clyde had gone home for the evening. Luke was logging off the computer and glanced over to Mr. Smith – who was still tucked away in his concealed chimney.

"Is Mr. Smith ever going to reappear?" Sarah-Jane looked up at hearing her sons voice.

"I think so Luke-"

"Mr. Smith has been proved wrong and is sulking, I think that it's rather pathetic how he is acting like a human who has not even reached their first decade in life," K-9's high robotic voice sounded, and Sarah-Jane rolled her eyes at the dog.

"I think that I might have to put you on re-charging again,"

"But Mistress I'm fully recharged," the dog replied. "I've spent the day 'resting' as you humans put it,"

"I think that you missed the underlying threat of mums insult K-9," Luke stated.

"Oh," the dog was silenced, and trundled off into a corner of the room. His pride slashed.

"I think that you need to go to bed Luke," Sarah-Jane advised in her motherly tone. Luke saw the time and nodded. Turning off the computer and stretching.

"Night mum," he kissed her on the cheek before heading down to his room.

Sarah also glanced at the clock, and saw that it was getting late. Deciding to follow her son's route she turned off the light and was about to leave. A small flashing green light caught her eye. Wondering what it was she traced it to the futon where Clyde had been sitting earlier. She smiled, boys and their toys. Intrigued she picked up the object, and realised that it was Clyde's Intendo DS Lite. It felt light in her hand, as she bounced it experimentally in her palm. It looked like Clyde had forgot to turn it off. She was about to put it back down and leave the room, but the green flashing light seemed to be calling to her.

Sarah-Jane, Sarah-Jane…

Shaking her head she was about to leave the darkened attic, but the voice was still there.

Sarah-Jane, _Sarah-Jane…_

Sighing the older woman turned back to the small flashing light. Making sure that her son wasn't around she flicked open the screen. Momentarily blinded by the flash of white light that hit her eyes as the screen exploded into colour.

Fight? A blue screen was on the bottom, and it looked like a large bald yellow sheep with a clowns nose on its bumblebee-striped tail was fighting something looking like a blue alligator on too much testosterone.

Shrugging Sarah quickly tapped the blue box with the small stylus held in her hands.

Maybe this wasn't such a bad game after all…

…there was rapid knocking on Number 13's door and Luke opened it as he saw his best friend jumping up and down to keep warm in the cold Monday morning air. He grinned at him and let him pass.

"Hey, Luke, I think that I left my DS here yesterday, can I run up to the attic and fetch it back?"

"Sure," Luke paused. Come to think of it he hadn't seen his mother around this morning. Following his mate up the stairs he was worried when Clyde stopped at the old wooden attic door, which had been left slightly ajar.

Now Luke _was_ worried, as his mother _never_ left the attic door open.

_Never_. Pushing past his friend he was stopped in his tracks, and a grin came to his face as he saw his mother sprawled out on the futon, with the closed DS clutched tightly in her hand.

Clyde hid his sniggers under his hand, and backtracked out the room fast, tumbling down the stairs in a fit of laughter.

Taking a blanket from the shelf Luke gently tucked his mum in, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead and taking the game consol out of her hands.

Sometimes there were just no words for his _normal_ life.

* * *

Was supposed to be done for the day that the games came out… oh well, what can you do?

And _yes_ I was as excited as Clyde! LOL

Don't like the last bit as I feel that it is too rushed.

_Now_ I really must get to bed as it's 10:45pm and I have school tomorrow!

Hope you enjoyed.  
As normal review make me happy!

Thanks,

LostLyra


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